THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH, R.A.
(1727-1788)
 

A Wooded Landscape with a Horseman

c.1765-70

watercolour, bodycolour, black chalk and black lead on paper

23.9 x 30 cm

inscribed on reverse: purshased [sic] at Bath at the Sale of Gainsborough’s drawings soon after his Death by S.Wollaston Esre. For £3-12       

beneath in pencil, largely illegible inscription: ….bought at the sale of S.Wollaston’s effects by …

P.756

No ‘S. Wollaston’ appears in Bath directories from 1788-1800, although W. Wollaston, an old friend of Gainsborough’s, died there in 1797. He, Henry Robertson and Gainsborough all had connections with Ipswich.

This drawing was discovered after the publication of John Haye’s catalogue of Gainsborough’s Drawings (1970) and his Addendum to it (1983). Dr Hayes dates the drawing to the late 1760s and considers it closely comparable to the Wooded Landscape with Figures and Farmhouse (collection Bois Penrose, Pennsylvania, Hayes no.309, pl.106).

In April 1985, a Mrs Griffin took some paintings by Henry Robertson (1848-1930), which had been left to her by a cousin, the artists’ daughter, to be examined by her art teacher. When these were sorted out, the Gainsborough came to light and was placed on loan at the Gallery.

On 4 June 1768, Gainsborough wrote from Bath to his friend William Jackson: ‘I’m sick of Portraits and wish very much to take my viol-da gamba and walk off to some sweet village, where I can paint landskips [sic] and enjoy the fag-end of life in quietness and ease’.

EJ/CB

PROVENANCE: S. Wollaston; whereabouts unknown; 1880-1894 purchased by Henry Robertson; Miss Pauline Roberston; 1973 bequeathed to Mrs W.L.A. Griffin; James R. Griffin, from whom purchased by Gallery, November 1989, with assistance from the V&A/M.G.C. Purchase Grant Fund, the National Art Collections Fund (Woodroffe Fund) and the Esmée Fairbairn Memorial Trust.

REFERENCES: Sir J. Graham, ‘A new Gainsborough watercolour and the Watercolour collection of the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford’, Watercolours, Drawings and Prints, winter, vol. 5, 1990, pp.31-3, fig.1; National Art Collections Fund Review, 1990, p.169.